The Pax Obama

The execution of Osama bin Laden, an operation carried out with skill and precision by U.S. special forces, succeeded in relegating one of the more important occurrences in the Middle East during the last few weeks to a second or even third rate news story: the reconciliation of the principal Palestine political factions, Fatah and Hamas, who have been at odds with each other since 2007, when Hamas seized power in the Gaza Strip, the chaotic territory that the apparatchiks of the secular Fatah found difficult to control.

Then, the politicians of Tel Aviv heavily considered throwing the peace talks out the window — how can one hold dialogue with a government, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) in Ramallah, that barely controls half of Palestine? The winners of the 2009 Israeli election made their refusal to talk with the PNA one of their major political platforms. The moderate Mahmoud Abbas, who inherited the demonized system of Yasser Arafat, became an irrelevant character whom Israeli politicians used as they sought excuses to reject any dialogue with PNA.

It should also come as no surprise, then, that the reconciliation of the Palestinian factions was viewed as a “fatal error” by part of the political Hebrew class. The Israeli prime minister did not hesitate to label the leader of the PNA as a “traitor to the ideals of his people” for having preferred to establish peace with the “Hamas terrorists” instead of accepting negotiations (glaring in their absence!) with Israel. In a nutshell, any excuse to avoid further dialogue will do.

It’s not overreaching to say that Netanyahu, familiar with the strategy of Mahmoud Abbas, could not hide his concern over the work of the PLO, which aspires to solicit the recognition of a Palestinian state from the General Assembly of the United Nations that meets in September. The Palestinians have to offer a united image, a coherent stance. As such, the desire of the president of PNA is to mend the fissure with the radical Islamic movement, to create a coalition government of technocrats who do not belong to rival factions and to announce the holding of general elections within a year.

With that comes the fear of the Hebrew politicians in the face of a new Palestinian reality that will lead to the adoption of a United Nations resolution on Palestinian statehood, a resolution supported by over 100 countries and championed by emerging powers in Asia and Latin America. A resolution that, truth be told, would not change the political reality in Jordan, Syria or Gaza but would accentuate the political and diplomatic isolation of the Israeli state.

It should be remembered that the Israeli politicians have been unable to understand and/or appreciate the impact of the most recent events in the area. They do not realize that these events require a radical tactical change in Tel Aviv. Continual deadlock between Israel and Palestine can have dire consequences within Islamic radical societies like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Jordan and Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, etc. However, Prime Minister Netanyahu prefers to ignore the consequences of the so-called “Arab Spring,” reserving himself the right to present a new diplomatic initiative before the United States Congress under the assumption of “he who pays, commands.”

The immobility of Netanyahu worries the White House incumbent. Barack Obama knows that North America cannot and should not renounce its hegemonic role in the region for the simple reason that the acceptance of either a Palestinian or Israeli intiative would end up eroding the already-fragile prestige of Washington in the Muslim world. The president of the United States will reveal his own peace plan on May 24 in an attempt to move forward with the requests of both Abbas and Netanyahu.

It remains to be seen if the Pax Obama will not run into the same luck that the dozens of initiatives, all proposed by well-meaning men, have in the past 50 years.